My traitorous heart flutters when he slides his fingertips along the bare skin above my britches.
When he’s finished, I’m fashioned in a way I think can’t be improved, but then he rises, picks up a pair of boots and hosen which he drops at my bare feet, and moves to stand behind me. Still a little on edge around him, I glance back as he pushes my hair over my shoulder.
His calloused fingertips graze my collarbone, sending a rogue chill along my arms as he begins loosening my laces.
“So you can breathe better,” he says, and I have to look away.
My breasts fall, and my lungs and ribs expand on a blissful inhale. At my back, however, he leans close. When he speaks, his warm breath grazes the curve of my neck, and it’s all I can do not to shiver.
“My name is Alexus. Alexus Thibault. Not Witch Collector.” He comes to face me and says it again, this time with his hands.
Cheeks burning, I sign his name too. The feel of it is as odd on my fingertips as it would be on my tongue.
After giving me the tiniest appreciative smile, he turns, leaving me standing there, drenched in foreign and overwhelming sensations I need to ignore. Because moons and stars, I don’t trust him. Not in the least. But I’m beginning to think I could, and that’s the most unfathomable notion I’ve ever imagined.
While he gathers our things, loads the pack on his horse, and hangs the oil lamp from the saddle, I slip on the too-small boots and socks and strap the gambeson on the mare. I hand the Witch—no, Alexus—his cloak, which he accepts, but he whips the garment around my shoulders instead of his own.
“It suits you. As does this.” He retrieves Finn’s dagger belt and produces a fire-singed blade he must’ve taken from Littledenn. “You’re good with a scythe. Hopefully, you’re good with a small blade too.”
Good enough to slice open the Prince of the East’s face, an act I suppose Alexus couldn’t have seen from his vantage point during the attack.
“Why do they want the king?” The thought blurts from my hands before I accept the belt and weapon and strap them to my thigh.
He stares down at me, black hair catching in the wind. “Long story. Just know that the Eastlanders need him, so if they manage to get their hands on him, they won’t take his life. Not yet. But there’s an excellent chance we’ll regret letting them succeed.”
I want to tell him that my last concern is the Frost King. That he could melt into a puddle, and I would feel nothing but satisfaction. I’m only curious why the Eastlanders want the king now when all has been silent here for so long.
“We could always use your gift with the waters before we go.” He extends the bowl between us. “To determine where the king is.”
I take a deep breath, dreading my next words. Another glimmer of hope shines in Alexus’s eyes, and I’m about to dash it to pieces.
“I fear I cannot help. Not in that way.”
His brow twists. “Explain.”
I shake out my tired fingers. “I cannot see whatever I choose. I must form an image in my mind, and I only see things as they are happening. Like Nephele. I did not become skilled at scrying until a year after she was taken. I mastered the art, but the image of her no longer matched the woman she had become. I could not see her.”
He flinches at that, and in truth, so do I. It all makes sense now that I’ve said it. Nephele really has changed, and it happened so soon after leaving Silver Hollow.
It makes me despise the Frost King even more.
“I have never laid eyes on that cold bastard you call a king,” I add. “I do not know what to look for when it comes to him. The most I can do is watch for Eastlanders and hope I see the right group.” I’m rambling, and my words have clearly shaken his faith, so I lower my hands.
Alexus scrubs his face, half-smothering a groan. “All right. Let’s do that, then. One last look before we go.”
I take the dish and refill it at the stream’s edge, squatting low. This time, I use my new dagger to pierce my finger.
My blood runs into the water and, once again, the forest at night appears. The faint glow from a snowy wood outlines the silhouettes of tree limbs and horses and men. I can sense the Eastlanders’ distress, feel their racing hearts.
Alexus stands over my shoulder, clearly curious.
“I cannot see their faces, but at least one band of warriors is still in the wood,” I tell him. “Cold and worried about never getting out.”
He stares down at me. “You can tell what they’re feeling?”
“Sometimes.” I shrug, empty the dish, and stand.
“Is that…normal for you? Reading people’s emotions?”
I raise a brow. “Why? Worried?”
Alexus opens his mouth to speak but shakes his head instead, as though clearly thinking better of whatever words tempted his tongue. He bends to help me mount the mare.
After he climbs astride his horse, we sit facing the foreboding tree line in the distance. I look at him, still stunned that we’re here, together. The weight of all the things neither of us can seem to say hums between us.
“To the forest, then,” I sign.
He nods once, eyes gleaming with new and eye-opening clarity. “Yes. To the forest.”
II
Into The Wood
13
Raina
Save for their magick-cast arrows, I’ve never seen Eastlander witchcraft. In truth, I’ve never seen witchcraft of this magnitude at all.
We’re a half-mile away on Borier Hill, overlooking a foggy Littledenn, staring at a complex tangle of trees and thorny branches stretching east to west for miles. Frostwater Wood spans the valley’s length, from the base of the snowy mountains near Hampstead Loch to the glade below the rugged eastern range that can be found a short journey from Silver Hollow. The entirety of the wood now lies hedged by this barbed, malevolent barricade.
Though similar to the valley’s Witch Walkers’ construction, this wall is different because it is tangible. Our barrier was a force we had to maintain day in and day out, a repelling boundary that made passage impossible.
This one is real, something created from nothing—unless the Eastlanders used the forest in some form of magickal alchemy. Such a thing isn’t impossible. It’s just not something I’ve ever been able to do.
There’s also no one left behind to prevent the construct from crumbling to a pile of sticks and briars, unless there are dozens of Eastlanders on the other side of the blockade—another possibility, though unlikely. There weren’t enough Eastlanders remaining last night for that task, which makes this level of craft even more terrifying. Someone must be maintaining this magick.
I swallow hard and look to the sky. A dark cloud moves above us, the sun bathing us in gentle midday heat as it burns away the crawling mist.
Alexus squints. “This is a sorcerer’s doing. A powerful sorcerer. Or perhaps more than one.”
It can’t be the Prince of the East. I keep telling myself that the God Knife ended him.
It had to.